Officially released TODAY is the “Timeline: The History of WCW – 1985” DVD!

Magnum T.A. is the special guest for this edition of Kayfabe Commentaries’ series. Watch the trailer below and order a copy on DVD or via instant streaming at KayfabeCommentaries.com.

Before taking on the identity of WCW, Jim Crockett Promotions would get great national exposure on WTBS after buying the slot from Vince McMahon for $1 million. Their stars were now stars all over the country, and our guest for this edition was becoming the biggest babyface in the company.

Magnum TA had just arrived from Mid South and was taking the territory by storm, heading toward the US Title and becoming the #1 challenger for Flair. He’d feud with Tully, battle Flair, and help JCP begin its transition to what would become known as WCW. 1985 is the first year in our journey, so come along and join Magnum and hear about the red hot year that would propel the company into a decade and a half wild ride.

Up for grabs on eBay later today are these 2 Hell in a Cell DVD box sets (still sealed) with Undertaker and Kane busts inside, both being auctioned off together for a decent price!

Auctions for all of these WWF/WWE/ECW DVDs are also expiring cheap today on eBay under seller name “dgtfb1964” – a few 2015 titles like “The KLIQ Rules” and “Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe”, out-of-print goodies like Invasion 2001 and “Chris Benoit: Hard Knocks”, plus some Blu-rays.

39 Comments left on this article...

Definitely agree that the documentary is the main selling point. I remember the True Story of WM had extras where a talent told a story. For example, one of them was Edge telling what his favorite WM match was, him vs Taker at WM24. I can see some of the extras for The True Royal Rumble Story being various Rumble match talent from over the years commenting on their favorite Royal Rumble match. They’ll probably be some matches, no doubt. I can’t see all of the following being included in its entirety (hope I’m wrong on that) but I’d like to see the following matches:
Taker vs Bret Hart: 1996
Taker vs HBK: 1998
Rockers vs Orient Express: 1991
30 Man Royal Rumble matches: 1988 (the first one has to be there), 1992 (best Rumble ever, should include the awesome pre-match comments and Flair’s post-Rumble win interview), 1994 (the first double elimination, replicated later in 2005), 1998 (3 Faces of Foley, Austin’s win), 2001 (Kane’s record), 2003 (another great Rumble), 2008 (great Rumble match from MSG), 2009, 2015

The doc will be the main selling point and it has the potential to be really good so fingers crossed on that one. I’m intrigued to see how they’ll choose the match listing for this what with the network and the anthology release. I hope they don’t fill the set with nothing but rumble matches because a lot of them aren’t that great and whilst the rumble is a fun match to watch the first time round, they don’t hold up to repeat viewings too well in my opinion. I’m hoping they pick 3-4 rumble matches and then a handful of other matches from the shows history. The 88 rumble will probably be on here because it was the first one. The 1992 match because it was the best rumble ever (and will probably never be topped). It wasn’t a great match but I’m thinking the 1995 rumble will be included because it was fairly short (clocking in at under 40 minutes), has HBK going “coast to coast” to win it and is a nice little snapshot of some of the whacky characters from the New Generation era. The 2001 match because it was possibly the best rumble from the attitude era? And as others have mentioned, the 08 rumble to be a Blu-Ray exclusive.

The 04 match will undoubtedly be ignored as though it never happened. I always found it hilarious that WWE edited the crowd reaction at the end of the 92 rumble. When it broadcast live they booed Hogan out of the building but on the VHS and DVD releases they dubbed in massive cheers when he played his part in “helping” Flair win!

did’nt know bout that crowd reaction edit.. thanks for info.. well, I could have told myself that it was done that way..to make Hogan look like a hero rather than a crybaby.. gonna take notice of the crowd next time I watch the match to see that out-of sync visual reaction compared to the audio reaction.. -lol

15 Man Royal Rumble where the winner faces the World Champion at No Way Out
Smackdown
January 29, 2004

Battle royal (if anyone other than Big Show wins they are in the Rumble)
Participants: Big Show, Lance Cade, Rob Conway, Gregory Helms
Raw
January 23, 2006

Mini Royal Rumble
Raw
January 14, 2008

7 man Royal Rumble
Raw
January 31, 2011

And of course there are plenty of interviews, qualifying matches and the times the wrestlers would draw the numbers that could be shown. Maybe they will shoot some behind the scenes footage at the 2016 Royal Rumble also.

too bad the 2001 Ladder Match between Benoit and Jericho and the WWE Championship Match with Benoit and Angle in 2003 won’t be on it because they were very good matches that would’ve been considered to be added on the set.

GREAT NEWS. The Rumble and battle royals in general are matches I have always been a huge fan of. If anyone is wondering, btw, the extras can be composed mostly of qualifying matches and some of the Rumbles that didn’t air on PPV. There actually have been quite a lot of them. This is going to be so good so I can’t wait for this. Hopefully they do actually put those extras I want and not just a bunch of the PPV Rumbles, although some of those are worthy, too.

Yes! Been looking to a follow up to The True Story of Wrestlemania for quite some time. I hope the Rumble edition sells well enough for WWE to release a True Story set on Summerslam, Survivor Series, RAW, and Smackdown at some point.

Pat Patterson should definitely be interviewed for the doc. As for Rumble participants, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Ric Flair, HBK, Austin, Bret Hart/Lex Luger, Cena, HHH, and I’d like to see Taker interviewed too. He did win the match in 2007. Kane and Roman Reigns would be nice to hear from as Reigns eventually in 2014 if I’m not mistaken broke the Rumble record Kane held since 2001. It’s definitely an accomplishment of both men’s careers. Some surprise entrants would be nice. Bubba Ray, DDP, Booker T, Kevin Nash, Road Dogg all got huge pops when they were surprise entrants so it’d be nice to hear from them.

That Royal Rumble feature intrigues me, but not so confident in the three-disc edition. Like the True Story of Wrestlemania, the matches included will be easy to find on other releases. Passed on the Mania release until I found a one-disc version at Wal-Mart, and this will likely be the case for the Rumble edition as well.

I highly doubt we’re going to get the “true story” of the Royal Rumble. We’re going to get WWE’s revisionist history of the truth. The true story is Vince McMahon was doing everything he can to sabotage Jim Crockett Promotions’ expansion into the PPV market. When the NWA’s Bunkhouse Stampede PPV was announced, Vince decided to combat them head-to-head on USA Network. When thinking of ideas for what the show would be, he decided to use Pat Patterson’s Royal Rumble idea that was created at a house show in 1987, which didn’t do well at all that night.

Btw, the “True Story Of Survivor Series” would be a similar story with its only purpose being to go head-to-head with the already announced Starrcade ’87 on PPV. So yeah, I don’t see WWE mentioning any of that in their documentary. But maybe I’m wrong, who knows? Perhaps they will mention it, but I doubt it.

WWE have never made it a secret that they put the first Rumble on USA to take viewers hip away from NWA/WCW nor have they the fact that they threatened to block providers from broadcasting Wrestlemania 4 if they didn’t show the first Survivor Series over the NWA event

They certainly went out of their way to ignore all of that on the Monday Night War documentary. During the first episode they were talking about the history of WWF and WCW and they mentioned how Crockett aired the very first Clash Of The Champions head to head with WrestleMania and how Vince was very upset with that, yet they didn’t mention doing the exact same thing twice to Crockett with Survivor Series and Royal Rumble months earlier.

Somewhat interested in the true story of rumble, although that’s not exactly what I really wanted to see. I wanted to see a history/best of the battle royal and I wanted to see some of wcw’s world war 3’s with three rings and 60 competitors.

All rumble events on Blu-ray would be nice…but unfortunately looks like WWE are moving away from anthologies and are doing more “Best ofs” and using the Network. Cost and sales for previous anthologies were probably not great, which is why Survivor Series never saw more volumes, specifically Vol. 3 and 4.